Sailing Beyond Lake Superior

Dreamboat Dursmirg tied to the Lonz Winery dock at Middle Bass Island in western Lake Erie

 The Lake Erie Islands opened the door to a totally new world and our adventure was just about to unfold.

 

A letter that Jane wrote her parents on September 18, 1972.

Dear Mom, Dad and Joel,

We are at Middle Bass Island, Ohio. tied up in front of Lonz Winery on Lake Erie. We got here yesterday afternoon from Detroit. We spent 4 days in Detroit, went to Greenfield Village and Henry Ford Museum, which were very interesting. Jon Moin’s brother Wilson took us all over the city and had us to his home 2 nights for dinner. Channel 4 TV in Detroit did a story on us and the newspaper wrote an article.

It looks like we will be tied up for a while because we are having a terrible storm…at least 50 knot winds, can hardly stand up outside. We were lucky that we got in two hours before the storm hit. I may have already mentioned it but we saw another Ferro-cement boat under construction in Sarnia, Ontario. We’ve sure met a lot of interesting people along the way. (End of excerpt from letter).

At Middle Bass Island Jane and I were given many bags of ripe apples by the residents because this was the apple season, and this year there was a bumper crop. Jane had no problem with all the apples and had a steady production of fresh apple pie coming out of her shipboard kitchen (galley). Of course we had ten times more than we could consume ourselves, but the pies were a huge hit everywhere we visited.

Read the rest of this fascinating true life story in Sailing Beyond Lake Superior: Travels ofDursmirg, available in paperback and digital editions worldwide.

Xcanchakan - The first Spanish land grant of 1542 in Yucatan, Mexico

This 1840 engraving by Fredrick Catherwood is from John L. Stephens classic book Incidents of Travel in Yucatan depicting the hacienda of Xcanchakan as they saw it.

Excerpted from Incidents of Travel in Yucatan by John L. Stephens, 1843; 

The hacienda, or rather rancho, of San Joaquin, on which the ruins of Mayapan lie scattered... It forms part of the great hacienda of Xcanchakan…Xcanchakan; It was nearly dark when we reached the stately hacienda of Xcanchakan, one of the three finest in Yucatan, and containing nearly seven hundred souls.  The house is perhaps one of the best in the country, and being within one day's ride of the capital, [Mérida] and accessible by calesa, it is a favorite residence of its venerable proprietor. The whole condition of the hacienda showed that it was often subject to the master's eye, and the character of that master may be judged of from the fact that his major domo, the same who was attendant upon us, had been with him twenty-six years. I have given the reader some idea of a hacienda in Yucatan, with its cattle-yard, its great tanks of water and other accessories. All these were upon a large and substantial scale, equal to any we had seen; and there was one little refinement in their arrangement, which, though not, perhaps, intended for that purpose, could not fail to strike the eye of a stranger. The passage to the well was across the corridor, and, sitting quietly in the shade, the proprietor could see every day, passing and re-passing, all the women and girls belonging to the estate…

This photo is from the book Yucatán’s Magic - Mérida Side Trips. It depicts the stately first Spanish land grant or encomienda of 1542 as it can be seen today. Read the rest of this fascinating story in Yucatán’s Magic - Mérida Side Trips and discover how you can visit this truly unique place with no tour buses or trinket shops.

Yucatán’s Magic -Mérida Side Trips is available in paperback and digital editions worldwide.

Other recommended reading:

Incidents of Travel in Yucatan  1840-42 by John L. Stephens (two volumes). A well written must read documentary for anyone interested in colonial Yucatan, Mayan ruins, Mexican history, and adventure travel. These books are in print and also available for free from Project Gutenberg.

A short bio. of John Lloyd Stephens:

John Lloyd Stephens (1805–1852) was an American explorer, writer, and diplomat. 

At age of 13 he enrolled at Columbia College in New York City, graduating at the top of his class. After working as a lawyer for 8 years, in 1834 he traveled through Europe, the Middle East, and Egypt. He wrote several books about his travels and explorations.

In 1838 he was commissioned ambassador to Central America and published the books, Incidents of Travel in Central America, Chiapas and Yucatán in 1839.

In 1840 he returned to Yucatan with draftsman Fredrick Catherwood where they did extensive research and recorded many Mayan ruins previously undiscovered.

In 1843 Stephens published Incidents of Travel in Yucatan in two volumes. It was illustrated with 120 high detail engravings by Fredrick Catherwood.

In 1849 he headed the Panama Railroad Company that was a key component in the construction of the Panama Canal. He died in New York City at age 46 of complications from a tropical disease.

Links:

Project Gutenberg –Incidents of Travel in Yucatan: Volume One

Project Gutenberg -Incidents of Travel in Yucatan: Volume Two

Yucatán’s Magic –Mérida Side Trips

St. Augustine, Florida - The Sun Never Sets on a DESCO Boat

St. Augustine’s Boat Building Industry

Perhaps the most beautiful shrimp trawler to ever originate in St. Augustine, the Venus, pictured here, was the last to come out of Xynides Boat Yard: Old World Greek craftsmanship at its finest.

DESCO, St. Augustine’s largest builder of fishing trawlers, began in 1947 and became the largest employer in St. Augustine.  They soon sold so many trawlers that they adopted the slogan “The Sun Never Sets on a Desco Boat”.

When Jane and I arrived in St. Augustine aboard our boat Dursmirg back in the fall of 1972, St. Augustine was the trawler building capital of the world. The two biggest players in the industry were DESCO (Diesel Engine Sales Company) and St. Augustine Trawlers, located across the river, was a distant competitor.

There were numerous small mom and pop operations building wooden trawlers: Harry Xynides, Leonard Nix, and Steve Sarris were true high quality craftsmen and incredibly clever. Steve Sarris, for example, would built a complete first class shrimp trawler from stem to stern with a crew of six workers under the shade of an old oak tree that they also used to hoist the bow stem into place.  Every two months another new Sarris trawler was launched from a lot with no railway or sophisticated equipment, just the old oak tree and lots of Old Country Greek shrewdness. They were very nice, well crafted, and expertly finished vessels.

Read the rest of this fascinating story of the St. Augustine boat building and fishing industries in the book; Sailing to St. Augustine: Travels of Dursmirg. The book is available in paper and digital editions worldwide.

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